


The stars (they're just old light)

by sbrn10



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Sam and Lena drink a lot of wine, but it gets marginally better, mostly set between s3 and s4, supercorp if you squint, uh... angst? I guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-04 05:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17299016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbrn10/pseuds/sbrn10
Summary: Lena spent two years living in a hotel room. Sometimes she got drunk.





	1. Chapter 1

i.

Lena isn't sure exactly when ten-minute appointments for quotes turned into coffee breaks, then brunches and dinners and then, sometimes, drinks, on Wednesdays or Fridays at the bar across the street from the L-Corp building, where too many recognize her during happy hour and scurry to give her a wide berth. But it doesn't bother her as much as she might have thought, not with Kara sitting there, turned all the way towards her and elbow on the bar, moaning about Snapper's latest impossible demands for half an hour before blushingly defaulting to self-deprecation with, "Crap, you must think I'm terrible."

"Not at all."

"It's just, you're like, a genius, and _so good_ at your job, you probably can't relate at all to—"

"To having to answer to capricious, arrogant men?" Lena pauses for effect, leaning in conspiratorially. "I do have this thing called a board of directors, you know." It's not very funny, but Kara laughs anyway, swiveling easily on her barstool, and Lena feels bigger even though she's hunching over to nudge Kara's shoulder with her own, a silent _go on._

When it turns out one of Kara's latest articles is about the effects of the skyrocketing rent in National City, particularly around the tech sector, and Kara starts talking passionately about _gentrification_ and _they're destroying communities!,_ Lena regrets it, a little.

"Hey, don't blame me for paying my employees well," she says, hands up, palms out, defensive out of habit even as she hides it under a joke.

"Did I say I was going to blame you?" Kara shoots back, lips pursed despite the smile behind her glasses. "Not everything is about you, Lena!" Lena smiles too and cocks her head, an acknowledgement that she walked into that one. "Now, if you'd get an apartment like a normal person, maybe I _would_ blame you for, I don't know, singlehandedly raising the market price."

Lena stops and arches an eyebrow at Kara. That's not how a market works, but more importantly, she's never mentioned where she lives—not being the invite-for-dinner kind of friend, after all—and there's no reason for Kara to know. Kara seems to realize the incongruity too and flushes, fiddling with her glasses.

"Supergirl just mentioned once that she met you at your, um, hotel. To... talk about world-saving stuff?"

Lena blinks. It had only been once, the night of Lillian's arrest. Supergirl had wanted to offer some... Lena's not really sure, but kindness, perhaps. Between Supergirl's uncertainty and Lena's desire to be alone, the conversation hadn't lasted long and in retrospect hardly qualified as world-saving. But she doesn't really want to bring up her mother tonight, so she just remarks, "You talk to Supergirl a lot."

Kara squeaks, just this side of a laugh, and ducks her head. "Yeah, well, she _is_ my main source. It just came up; I didn't mean to pry or anything." Then Kara is studying Lena, gauging _something_ , until she shrugs with deliberate levity. "Anyway, hey, like I've been saying, it's a landlord's market, so if you're thinking about getting your own place, sooner is probably better than later."

Lena considers her wine glass and her response, before settling on a noncommittal, "Your advice is duly noted."

"You've been here for months now, you know," Kara reminds her, as if Lena isn't intimately aware.

"It's not that big a deal, _you know,_ " Lena says back airily.

And it's not, no matter what Kara's skeptic look implies. It doesn't mean anything. It's an entire industry that caters specifically to business executives in various cities all over the world. Placing importance on a signed lease is mere sentimentality, especially to someone like Lena—who travels, who keeps her work hours, who could break any lease at any time, penalties be damned, who could decide to move to fucking Tokyo right now on a whim, if she wanted.

"It's exactly like living in any other apartment: you pay money, you get a place to live, the arrangement is exclusive as long as you're paying—except the facilities are nicer, and there's room service." Lena punctuates her declaration with a smirk, a lifted eyebrow, a brandishing of her glass, wine swirling, like a gavel pronouncing an argument won.

Kara exaggerates a gasp, complete with a dramatic hand to her chest, and says, "I can't believe you're bringing _room service_ into it, that's unfair," before changing the subject. It's a copout, Lena knows, but Kara lets her have her last word and Lena lets Kara let her.

Room service doesn't deliver cheap pizza, Kara's favorite chinese, or overly greasy burgers that taste like coronary failure and the (still) inexplicable, (still) astonishing idea of someone caring, but Lena nods and takes the win, takes another sip.

 

* * *

 

Lena doesn't understand how Kara stays so infuriatingly sober after matching Lena glass for glass; Lena is a boneless, slurring wreck and Kara's hands are so _warm_ but so _sure_ as she shepherds Lena into the backseat of her car.

"Hey, Tom." Kara sounds as cheerful as ever, handling Lena's dead weight effortlessly, and when Lena's driver turns to nod at Kara, they're familiar enough that he doesn't even protest against Kara pushing Lena farther to climb in beside her. When did that even happen, when would Kara have ever talked to Tom, what is—

"What are you—" is as far as Lena gets before needing a second to untangle her tongue, to squint, confused, at the body next to her, getting closer, but Kara answers without missing a beat anyway, sounding so matter-of-fact.

"Taking you home."

Lena is very, very good at deflecting concern with lofty confidence—don't be ridiculous, I have a driver, I'm fine, there's security at the hotel, even a concierge, really—but Kara only smiles at her and nods indulgently, not so much shooting down Lena's arguments as just... letting them ricochet off her. Remaining unharmed, untouched, _still there._

At some, unspecified point, they're already halfway to the Baldwin and Lena forgets what they were arguing about.

Kara is so warm, all the time, but it's harder not to notice when Lena is all but draped across her. A warm arm around her waist, a warm hand under her arm, holding her up instead of letting her sag, a warm shoulder when she tucks her chin against solidness and _leans._ A contrast to Lena's own, clammy hands, always a shade too cool, always enough to make people flinch minutely upon even the most incidental contact. But not Kara, who seems to burn hot enough that she doesn't care. "Cold hands, warm heart," Kara had told her once, grinning, incandescent, and Lena hadn't had the heart to correct her. Doesn't have the heart to pull away now, staring up at the hollow under Kara's jaw, thrown in stark relief when she looks up for numbers in an elevator that doesn't have them.

"You know, sometimes I forget how filthy rich you are," Kara says when the elevator door opens into the catalog-perfect penthouse, lights blinking on in response to their entry. Lena snorts in disbelief, but it comes out like a laugh, and Kara laughs back, somehow propping Lena up easily while she bends to help pull off Lena's shoes. "Shut up, not that you're rich at _all_ —you've seen your wardrobe, right—but like. How much."

"Clearly I'm doing it wrong," Lena mumbles, leaning her head back against the wall to blink at the ceiling instead of looking down at Kara, crouched by her feet. Kara may be the only person Lena has ever known that doesn't see her name like a brand on her forehead, for good or for ill, and Lena doesn't understand it.

"I mean, I like it," Kara says somewhat absently. Lena's not sure what that means, but Kara seems distracted as she puts Lena's shoes to one side and starts gathering Lena up, shuffling her towards the bedroom. That distracts Lena too—how does Kara know which way the bedroom is?—but then the inkling escapes her as she stumbles and nearly brings Kara down with her, drawing a surprised, huffed laugh out of her friend. "Hey, hey, easy does it."

"Sorry. You didn't have to—" Lena's hair falls into her face when she hangs her head, lolling to one side, but Kara is having none of her symbolism tonight, easing Lena out of her jacket and into bed so that Lena is staring up at her, barefaced.

"It's fine, lightweight," Kara teases, with an odd note of contrition there too, which makes no sense. It's not Kara's fault that Lena's a mess. Lena wants to ask, but—a hushed "You'll be fine, okay?" and then, Kara's hand, gently brushing Lena's hair back, maybe even lingering a little along her temple, the hill of her cheekbone, the dip in front of her ear.

For one wild moment, Lena lets herself imagine a different life; one where they're not in a hotel room, and she's not drunk, and the touch on her face is warm with something other than Kara's default kindness, concern, _caring for a friend;_ but then the heat is gone and Lena's eyes nearly roll back into her head in a futile attempt to follow her best friend's movements— _up_ and _away_ from the bed.

Because the thing about lowered inhibitions is that _lowered_ is relative, you see, and her inhibitions are skyscrapers with her name on the side, omnipresent reminders visible from every corner in every city she's ever lived in. She doesn't know how drunk would be drunk enough to grab Kara's hand and ask her to stay, but it isn't now, isn't this.

A whispered "Thank you," is as close as she gets, and she thinks Kara smiles in the dim half-light cutting through the open door.

 

 

 

 

ii.

One day, Kara steps in front of a bullet meant for Lena, for all the good that does—Lena still _feels_ like something metallic and sharp exploded in her chest, a million shards slicing into her from the inside. The anguished look on Kara's face does nothing to help before Kara hands her to someone in uniform and dashes off out of sight. In the commotion, no one else seems to have noticed that Lena's world has been dashed too.

Later, on television, Lena will watch Supergirl wrestle with a nondescript man in nondescript paramilitary gear and be struck by the banality of it all—after her psychopathic family and a potpourri of aliens bent on actual world destruction and/or domination, the last straw turns out to be something as mundane as this, a mercenary hired to kill her for no immediately discernible reason, such an _any given Tuesday_ sort of thing around these parts. By then, Kara will have called six times, texted _I'm sorry,_ then _call me when you want to talk,_ and given up. Lena will order the most expensive whiskey the Baldwin has.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks, one arrested corporate rival later and five glasses in, Lena is already well past regretting this tomorrow territory—one alcohol-numbed day at a time has been working so far, so if it ain't broke, right?

The knock on her window is genuinely shocking—she had expected that, by now, Kara would have really gotten the message. But there Supergirl is, half-obscured by the reflection of the penthouse lights in the dark glass, half-seeming like an apparition conjured by Lena's own emotional instability, and yet... still there.

Lena schools her face into detachment and makes a show of turning away. She's quite good at ignoring people when she feels so inclined, and she's been doing well so far. There's a slight problem in that she has just realized that her entire social circle in National City consists of Kara and Kara's friends, so she's been ignoring calls from Alex, James, even once from Brainiac too, plus several numbers that she knows are landlines at the DEO, although she's not sure if those were social calls or some sort of world-saving emergency. The world didn't end when she ignored them, so probably the former. But anyway, she's been _handling_ it.

Supergirl knocks again, not urgent enough for it to be business, and Lena scowls. "Go away." She means to sound firm; against her will, it comes out childish, petulant, and she frowns, then, secure in the knowledge that Supergirl won't see.

Supergirl knocks again. Lena sighs, rubs her forehead, pours herself another. Six glasses in, she's already regretting this.

 

* * *

 

Supergirl floats in, blue and red and smelling like hot August air, and Lena suppresses the sudden urge to hurl her glass at... something. Probably Kara. It's not like it would hurt her, but there's just that sliver of doubt that stays her hand.

"Hi," she says cautiously. Lena rolls her eyes.

"What do you want?"

"...to talk. I was, um. Giving you space, but I called your office and Eve said you'd taken sick days, and you never do that. So." Somehow the worry is all the more insultingly blunt for being left unsaid, and Lena bristles. As if Kara has the right.

"I told Eve to refuse your calls. She's apparently terrible at it," Lena says flatly, impassive as Kara flinches.

"Oh. Well. I'm glad you're not sick."

The absurdity of the remark, of everything, the sheer inappropriateness of having any kind of conversation with Kara while she's standing there _in that suit,_ makes Lena laugh, stuttering and slightly hysterical, as she turns away and takes a swig.

"Then you can leave."

Footsteps follow her, just as stuttering, to where she drops unceremoniously to the couch.

"Lena, are we going to talk about this?"

"No."

"I think we should."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Lena." Kara sounds... exasperated? Guilty? Sad? All of the above? None? Perhaps it's all projection on Lena's part. But more than anything, she sounds _exhausted,_ blue-clad shoulders looking so incongruously small without Supergirl's usual hands-on-hips bravado.

"I mean it. I—" Lena laughs, soft and mirthless, as she looks down into her fast emptying glass. "I understand why you did it."

And Lena does. She surveys their friendship the way she would a black-and-white board, heavy with marbled pieces of history, and knows that she's lost. A transmatter portal, a box that irrevocably tainted the skies, a lead-lined case of kryptonite. Never mind a genetic predisposition to insanity. Alekhine's gun, cannon after cannon aimed straight at a paper-thin defense consisting of so many discardable, weightless bottles of wine, fleeting hugs, inane pop culture references at silly brunches.

Lena wouldn't have told herself, if she were Kara.

It's just that, Lena loves Kara—loved, _had loved_ —for being incomprehensible.

"No," Kara says, almost a whisper but still shattering the silence. "You don't."

"Oh? So it wasn't the fact that you never trusted me? For good reason, I might add; don't think I don't get it, given my family history and—" Lena could keep going, words perfectly enunciated and light, sharp, not at all sloshed in self-pity, but Kara doesn't let her finish.

"I was afraid." Lena has nothing to say to that. Then, a sigh, a concession: "That you would hate me."

Lena smiles then, not bothering to hide her incredulity. There's an answering quirk of Kara's lips, but no humor to accompany it.

"Yeah. Funny, right."

When Kara turns away, pacing uneasily, Lena can't help but stare at things she is already quite familiar with—the impracticality of Supergirl's boots; the theatrical swish of her cape; the thumb holes at the end of her sleeves that Lena always thought a bit ridiculous, dark material drawing attention to pale hands as she wrings them, once, twice, then stops—things that are unsurprising on Supergirl but still bewildering to see on _Kara._

"I wanted to tell you. Sometimes I wanted you to just... know, somehow. Sometimes I thought you already knew and you were just humoring me, because you—you always respect boundaries." Kara talks at Lena's carpet, then Lena's lampshade, then Lena's half-empty bottle of whiskey, before turning to look at Lena again, jaw tight, arms wrapped around herself. "And sometimes I didn't. I know y—trust is important, to you. And I start every relationship in my life by lying, but I never expected to—by the time I wanted to tell you, I also... didn't." Kara huffs, throws up her hands, and the cape flutters behind her. "This is a crappy apology, I'm sorry."

Lena feels, abruptly, not drunk enough for any of this, but the glass she raises to her lips has barely enough for a sip. The bottle is on the coffee table, just out of reach unless she moves. It doesn't seem like a particularly opportune moment to stand.

"It's not that I didn't trust you. You know it's not." She does? She shouldn't be surprised when she looks up and Kara is looking right back, but she is, for some reason. "It's _not,_ " Kara insists again. "It's... you trusted me. And I wanted you to. I didn't want you to stop. Not..." Kara's gaze drops unhappily. "Not Kara." _Too._ Unspoken, but unmistakable, and Lena laughs, bitter and incredulous all over again.

"I can't believe I ranted to you about you." It makes Lena re-scan their history for a billionth time, only with a different filter: how many times did she get played for an utter fool? _Did you know he was dating Kara Danvers?_ indeed.

"...for what it's worth, I'm still sorry. About lying, about... everything. Kryptonite is... well, my kryptonite." Kara smiles weakly. "It was never an issue of trusting you, not really. It was... I just wanted it gone. All of it. It's unrealistic, I know that. But I—I do stupid things when I'm scared. That's a... theme, for tonight, I guess."

There's truth in that, Lena thinks, but a bigger falsehood in the white space behind it. "Don't lie," she says, not as angrily as she expects her voice to come out, but resolute, unwilling to let anything slide, not now.

"I'm... not?"

"Would you have blown up at Alex if she had access to kryptonite?" Lena smiles, _not_ sadly, when Kara doesn't answer immediately. "Of course not. Of course, you wouldn't have had to, because she wouldn't have hidden it from you, either. You see? You think I don't get it, but I do." Of course, _of course_ Kara is justified, has been justified all along, and Lena understands, she does. But see, faith never survives understanding, and in a moment of drunken clarity, Lena _understands_ that she had clutched at Kara like absolution. Just as well, that Supergirl turned out to be her own personal iconoclast.

Lena meets Kara's eyes, fragile and glassy, and feels a bizarre pride that her own ache with heat but are bone dry.

"You know, it's funny," Kara says, looking away, a vague handwave underscoring an attempted chuckle that does nothing to hide the low, keening note in her voice. "I never understood, really, how my planet died—how everyone just up and... let it die."

Lena says nothing but can't help how her mind immediately latches onto something—anything, other than the fucked up matter at hand—that it can ponder, rifling through fragments of knowledge even in vain. Lex had always been interested in Krypton's destruction, but there had never been much to be found. It had exploded, after all, and as far as anybody knew until recently, Superman and Supergirl were its only survivors.

"It wasn't a war. It wasn't a disaster. The stars didn't fall." The soft tone snaps Lena out of her contemplation, but Kara isn't looking at Lena anymore, just at her hands. "It was just a problem that had to be dealt with. That could have been dealt with. And everybody just... didn't. Pretended that there was no problem until it was too late, and I used to think—" Kara pauses and makes that _sound_ again. "It, uh, doesn't sound as far-fetched now as it used to. Look, I'm going to—leave you to it. Don't—you shouldn't drink too much, you have work tomorrow, right?" The words all rush into each other then, tripping over the way Kara's voice just _breaks,_ blurry like a blue-red silhouette as she's suddenly, simply, gone.

Just for this moment, gaze still inexorably fixed on the window left ajar, Lena forgets, in her astonishment, to be angry.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

iii.

Lena doesn't need an excuse to visit Metropolis. An excuse implies illegitimacy, and she has at least a dozen perfectly legitimate reasons, beginning with the fact that it is still the home of a sizable division of her company, which is overseen by the person who is now, quite literally, her only remaining friend. A friend who takes Lena's arrival on her doorstep—on alarmingly short notice, but Lena gets to do that when she's the CEO—admirably in stride, wrapping Lena up in a long, fierce hug before shoving an updated agenda for the afternoon's committee meeting into Lena's hands.

It's just as easy to fall into old patterns with Sam—Lena wants to fund her high-priority research projects (and if she doesn't call them the Harun-El experiments, it's to protect Sam, who has had enough trauma in her life) more aggressively, and Sam points out that they need extra cash on hand because who knows what interest rates will even be in the next six months. "We're more leveraged than we should be because of our acquisitions from last year. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying maybe don't go _too_ crazy on the budget," and it should be annoying, the way Sam is all business and no science; it should drive Lena up the wall because it's not like Lena hasn't done the math, of course she has, Sam is just irrationally risk-averse when it comes to cash flow projections; it shouldn't make Lena's chest _ache_ with missing her so much, when she's standing right in front of her.

"Dinner at my place?" Sam will say (not ask) later, and roll her eyes when Lena makes a vague allusion to a prior engagement. Ruby will barrel into Lena without even letting her get in the door, inexplicably taller than she remembers after only three months apart. Sam will casually throw together pasta, something Lena has never managed to do on a week night even without a small human dependent on her, and Lena will forget, for an entire evening, that her life is in shambles, because:

Ruby tells her all about her new soccer team and how Sam swooped in when Mr. Park had to quit because the Parks are moving. So now they go to soccer practice together, which is great, but also her mom is kind of going overboard and didn't have to buy a million different books ranging from Coaching for Dummies to biographies of at least three USWNT players, so can Lena please tell her to calm down? Lena imagines Sam, leg tucked under her, gnawing at a pencil tip, poring over a notepad scribbled with X's and O's the way she does with spreadsheets in the office, and just smiles helplessly. "I have a hard enough time convincing her to let me do my job, sweetie," she says in an apologetic stage whisper, and both Ariases roll their eyes, belied by the same grin.

After dinner, Ruby has homework, and once there are no minors in the room, Sam makes ambivalent noises into her wine glass about John from legal definitely hitting on her, and he's kinda cute, but office relationships are a disaster, right. Lena carefully avoids thinking about Alex—and by extension, Alex's— _nope,_ not going there—Alex wasn't broken up about Sam leaving anyway, why would she even think of Alex at all—and says, "No sexual harassment suits, please," which Sam only takes as an invitation to throw a potato chip at her.

"It's getting late," the credits running for the episode of trashy reality tv in the background remind her, so Lena settles her empty glass on the small table by the armchair she's claimed and stretches, languid and loose-limbed.

"Ugh, don't remind me—I'd rather pretend the world is ending tonight so we don't have to go to that meeting tomorrow." Sam throws her head back, hand on her forehead like a damsel in a period piece, and doesn't have the shame to hide how pleased she is when Lena laughs at her.

"Well, I'll get out of your hair then," Lena says, teasingly. The look Sam shoots her way in return is so _fond_ and _unimpressed._

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. You're welcome to stay the night, you know."

Sam knows just as well as Lena that Lena already has a room, booked on the company dollar at a perfectly fine business hotel where anyone at the front desk will recognize Lena and smile like an old friend when they greet her. That's not why she's offering.

"It's fine, Sam. I won't intrude."

"I'm pretty sure there's a rule that, after you save someone's life multiple times, both literally and figuratively, you get to crash at their place, no questions asked."

Lena just smiles and picks up her blazer; Sam makes a vaguely displeased noise before dragging her into a hug, kissing the side of her head lightly.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow. Be nice to Emily, by the way, she's been freaking out about not being perfect enough for you." Emily is new and technically Sam's assistant, but she shadowed Lena today with the sort of star-struck devotion that Lena admits was, if nothing else, soothing to Lena's broken ego.

"Nice to see at least _someone_ is still scared of me."

"In your dreams, Luthor; you've been exposed."

 

* * *

 

She steps out of Sam's house into an unseasonably hot September night.

Lena is used to moving from air-conditioned space to air-conditioned space, but even the fleeting exposure to muggy Metropolis night air as she walks from the house to the car, then from the car to the hotel is oppressive. She thinks, briefly, longingly, of National City's crisp, dry heat before shaking it off.

The A/C unit in the president suite at the Benjamin is loud, louder than she's used to, and she lies in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, for longer than she cares to admit.

 

* * *

 

"You don't have to entertain me all the time, you know." Lena would feel bad about about half moving in to Sam's house, except it's entirely Sam's fault—there was a time, once, when both of them would regularly be in the office at midnight, lonely lights dotting a dark facade, but now Sam drags her out at six and doesn't let her go to her hotel.

"Right, because clearly I have other engagements that I am dropping, just for you. I would be out partying wildly and getting laid if you hadn't shown up," Sam deadpans. Lena shrugs.

"You did say John was hitting on you."

"Gross, Lena."

"You're the one who said it!"

"It's called sarcasm!" Sam laughs, contagiously, and with a giggle, Lena also melts into her armchair—it does feel like hers, now, after only a couple evenings—enjoying the flush of comfort and the low drone of college soccer on the television in the background.

"So, are you going to talk about what's bothering you or are we just going to keep pretending that you're here because of the WindBrook deal?"

To her credit, Lena doesn't freeze at the swerve the conversation has taken, and instead makes a show of looking nonplussed, eyebrows arched, mouth upturned, hands akimbo.

"Pretending it is, then," Sam declares, leading smoothly into, "You know, I've been thinking we should fire Morgan; they've been slow and unresponsive and all around unacceptable for the ridiculous fees they ask," punctuated with a grimace after too large a gulp of wine. 

"Sam. Labor Day is a federal holiday."

"If you're charging 1500 an hour for your _services,_ you better be fucking available at your wedding and your funeral too." Sam points her glass at Lena like a gun, straight-faced even though they both know Sam is just bullshitting completely. "Anyway, Simpson's been sniffing around for business, and John only uses Morgan because he went to school with Paul."

Lena makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, shrugs. "Paul's not great, but we could do worse." Professional advisors are all the same anyway.

Sam makes the same noise right back, then swirls her wine for a long pause. "So, why are you running away from National City?" Lena rolls her eyes, too on guard to be surprised anymore. "I know you like to think you're mysterious and unreadable, but you're really not very subtle."

"Careful, Arias. It's not good for your health to antagonize a Luthor." Another conversation flits through her mind, unbidden _(I'm going to have to kill you both)_ and she pushes it away.

"You do know you're going to have to tell me at some point?"

"No."

"Challenge. Accepted," Sam says and grabs the wine bottle.

 

* * *

 

Later, she really does blame the wine. She should probably stop drinking all the time, but she sleeps better after. She ignores the voice in her head that tells her, archly, that there's a name for that, but maybe the voice has a point, because after they finish two bottles, start on a third, she says in a fit of melodrama, "Tell me a secret." Sam's eyebrows shoot up hard. "Something I don't know already."

"You kind of know all of the important things about me, Lena."

"Anything, anything at all," Lena says, and maybe it's the ugly, pleading tone under it all, refusing to be banished, that makes Sam's lips thin. "I can tell you one too, if you'd like." She laughs, low and wine-drenched, and whispers, "Everything I touch dies."

"Jesus, Lena," Sam says, nearly spitting out her drink. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, but it doesn't wipe away the frown tugging at the corner, or the long, studying gaze Sam gives her as she says, cautiously, "You realize you're literally, like, Jesus to my Lazarus."

"You still left too." It's incredibly unfair, Lena knows, knows even before she watches Sam stiffen, brow drawing dark, but the words slip out before Lena can stop them. At least the look on Sam's face jolts her into something closer to sobriety. "Shit, Sam, I'm sorry, I didn't—but, well, see. I hurt everyone. Even you."

"You know I didn't... leave you, right? We talk nearly every day, at least when you're not avoiding me."

"No, I mean, yes, of course I know that," Lena sighs, dropping her head back against the cushion of her armchair to blink at the ceiling. "I'm just... in a bad headspace."

"Okay..." Sam says slowly, and Lena can see her frown even though she's not looking. "So... who else has left-slash-been killed?"

"...everyone." Lena laughs again, shortly. Even James, who had trusted her enough to confide in her about Supergirl, hadn't trusted her enough to confide in her about _Supergirl._ Of course, it wasn't his secret to tell; of course, he would have been caught between betraying one friend and another, and he was Kara's friend first; it's not fair to blame him. Then again, who ever said the world is fair, or that Lena is?

_Honestly, even Lex_ —she kills that thought as fast as she has it.

Sam looks unsure. "So... at a minimum, I should be yelling at Kara, I take it."

Lena draws her legs up, curling in on herself, and shrugs.

"She... hurt you? Or... you hurt her?" Sam sighs and shakes her head. "Look, can we stop with the metaphors?"

Lena rests her head on her arms, crossed over her knees, and says, "She just... wasn't who I thought she was." Viewed askew, Sam looks blatantly skeptic, and Lena would laugh, again, she really would, because who wouldn't be, if they'd spent more than five minutes with Kara Danvers; who wouldn't have trouble believing that what you see isn't what you get with _that_ open book? But she doesn't.

"Okay, so she... lied? About something important?" Sam huffs. "For an engineer, you're really bad at being specific." And Lena considers telling Sam—Sam, who has just as much of a right to know, really, that Kara Danvers almost died fighting Reign, _saving_ her—but decides against it. Does that make her a hypocrite? She doesn't bother to answer herself.

"It's... fine. I don't really want to talk about it."

"You actually, _literally,_ just said the words, 'I kill everything I touch'—it's clearly not fine," Sam points out, and Lena is starting to worry that the crease between her brows will leave a lasting dent, so she just waves a hand listlessly.

"Please, you know not to take me seriously when I'm drunk and being overly dramatic." Her voice is almost back to her normal level of dry detachment.

"Have you talked to her?" Sam continues, as if Lena didn't say anything. Lena shrugs. "Are you just avoiding _everyone's_ calls then?"

"Excuse me if I've been _very busy_ with WindBrook, I happen to have a duty of _care_ and _loyalty_ to my company, and—" Lena tips back and is too busy gesturing towards the ceiling to register, except peripherally, that there's shuffling, the dull clink of glass meeting wood, the sound of human presence, until Sam is blotting out the light from above, shoving her into the side of the armchair, large and comfortable but not enough for two. Cushioned wood digs into Lena's rib cage on the side that isn't pressed against Sam, alcohol-hot everywhere even through all the layers between them. 

"I'm sorry."

"...about what?"

"That she hurt you." Sam doesn't even know what Kara did, exactly, or how that translates into Lena having no functional relationships left in National City, or that really, Kara did what any rational person would do, but she _believes_ Lena, and Lena grabs at Sam's arm like a safety bar on a rollercoaster, like the only thing keeping her heart from falling out of her chest, and doesn't know what to say.

 

* * *

 

Sam's guest bed is smaller, harder than Lena is used to, but for the first time in months, Lena sleeps and has no dreams.

 

* * *

 

"Yeah, well, tell Kara she _fucked up_ —you did _not_ just say—yes, I'm sure _Kara_ is just as tortured over _lying_ as Lena is about _being lied to_ —I'm sorry, have you _met_ Lena Luthor?"

Lena thinks, a bit idly, that the Regional Managing Director's office ought to have a thicker door. Sam's voice is hushed and strained, thin as it is through the translucent glass, and Lena doesn't know whether to feel offended or fiercely loved. _Mildly_ offended is what she settles on eventually, only enjoying it a little when she sweeps into the room and Sam jumps, all long, lanky limbs, a phone batted comically in the air twice before Sam saves it from being dropped face first, a mumbled, "Shit, I'll call you back, Paul." Lena raises an eyebrow at that, but Sam just shoves her phone into her pants and pretends nothing happened.

"You're allowed to talk to Alex, you know. Preferably not about me, but." Lena's hand flaps a bit aimlessly, as if to indicate just how little she cares, and Sam frowns.

" _Alex_ called _me;_ something about trying to get ahold of you." _You haven't been returning her calls,_ is left unsaid. Sam is kind that way.

Sam is friends with Alex and Kara. She doesn't need Lena's permission for that. It's just that Lena wishes, sometimes, that she hadn't asked Sam to move out to National City, hadn't told Sam, "Kara's great, you'll love her, I promise," because it's true, isn't it, because everyone falls straight into Kara's orbit like she's the fucking sun, and maybe, just for now Lena wants someone who's just _her_ friend, not Kara's too. But then the moment passes and Lena feels sick with guilt at the idea of Sam, alone in Metropolis, facing off against Superman. He wouldn't have known her, wouldn't have cared to save Sam if it meant killing Reign.

Lena swallows against the lump in her throat, deciding that she'll take it, all of it, and just holds out a paper bag—artisanal bagels and pressed juice, something that she's bringing to the table, for once.

"Lunch?"

 

* * *

 

"So, you never mentioned how long you're staying," Sam says, shoes off, long legs tucked under her on a couch that doesn't remind Lena of the one in her office at all.

"Trying to get rid of me already, Arias?" It's been nearly two weeks, but Lena doesn't think about that either. 

"No," Sam says plainly, and Lena isn't sure why she's surprised by the flat honesty. "But Eve has been calling Emily twice a day to check on you, and I think there are people waiting for you."

"Maybe I'll just move back to the city," Lena says, tearing off a piece of her bagel and eyeing it critically like a diamond. "It's been a few years; I think we've shed the Lex name pretty successfully. Wouldn't you say?"

Sam just looks at her.

"I still have the townhouse here, god knows it won't take much effort to pack up in National City—" 

"Lena," Sam cuts her off, then lets the silence hang. Again.

Lena thinks of her penthouse, the one she's lived in for two years now, no more association with it as a place to miss than she had the first time she walked in. Not like her office, not like her lab, not even like a small, unimposing apartment where she'd had dinner, drinks, monopoly, studiously avoided mistletoe on Christmas and New Year's.

"I... don't have any concrete plans. I've decided to, well, figure it out as I go."

"Okay," Sam says, simply. And that's that.

 

* * *

 

Lena is not dressed for this, heels sinking into the soft turf, squinting without her sunglasses as she stands next to Sam, who by all rights should look just as out of place in her suit but somehow doesn't, the whistle slung around her neck looking quite comfortable sitting against her dress shirt while she yells encouragements towards the field. She's not sure how she ended up here, exactly, except that Ruby's wheedling is unfairly persuasive even over the phone, and so now there are ice cream cones out there with their names on them, as unlikely as that sounds.

After practice is over, Ruby bounces off to get her bag from her locker, ponytail swinging behind her, while Lena and Sam slowly make their way to the parking lot.

"She looks really happy," Lena murmurs. She doesn't mean it to be particularly wistful, but Sam seems to take it that way, smiling sympathetically.

"Well, she's enjoying your company. We both are, for as long as we have you."

Sam's gaze is getting to be louder than words, all the implications, too, and suddenly, Lena has had quite enough. "Look, I'm really not as _heartbroken_ as you imagine me to be," comes out much sharper than the joke she had intended.

Sam looks disarmingly perplexed. "I... don't. Imagine that."

Then what is all this, hovering around Lena every day, refusing to let her spend her evenings alone, roping Ruby in for maximum underhanded effect? Lena wonders, for a moment, whether other people at the office think they're together. She probably would, if she observed their lives from a distance and saw the lunches, the oft-empty hotel room, Lena and Sam out-of-place-but-not at Ruby's soccer practice. They would be wrong, of course, but see, Sam is _objectively_ being ridiculous.

"You're really not that subtle, you know," Lena says, echoing Sam's words from a few nights ago, but Sam just blinks. "Maybe I just _don't want_ to go back, and it's not your job to try to get me to." 

"...okay," Sam says, after a long pause. They've stopped, not all the way to Sam's car, bracketed by family wagons, a picture of suburbia.

"Maybe I'm just accepting that I'll never belong in National City the way I wanted to, and that's okay, these things happen." Lena's not even drunk, but it feels like the honesty bursting out of her has been building for a while and this open lot, where her words sound small, escaping into the sky, seems as good a confessional as any.

"Okay." Sam shifts her weight from one foot to the other, caught between awkward and agreeable.

"You didn't want to stay either—I'm not saying it's the same, just that... you know?" Because the thought of National City hurts, and maybe Lena should be here, with Sam and Ruby, someone to tell her she _needs_ ice cream on a Friday evening like she needs air.

"I know," Sam says quietly, sighs a little with her hand on her cocked hip.

"It's not just... it's not just that she lied, you know. It's just—she was my best friend, and when I sat down and thought about it, I found... so much of it was built on sand. Does that make sense?"

Apparently, not really, because Sam just prompts back, "Meaning?"

"It just seemed... shallow. Superficial. You know, relationships that you have just because—" _she tells you the things that you're desperate to hear and you don't question it until a) there's an alien invasion force arriving on your planet or b) it's all fallen apart_ "—you happen to see each other often, and you talk about things, I suppose, but you don't... it's never..." Lena trails off, the pressure driving her, lodged in her throat, already petering out.

Sam looks unconvinced.

"Like us at work?"

"Not even remotely the same."

"You do realize that most relationships don't involve life-or-death situations and it's normal to have relationships built on, you know, just talking? That doesn't make it superficial."

Lena barks in laughter before she can stop herself. A lack of life-or-death situations—or even life saving, one way or the other—is really not the issue here.

"It's just... complicated. And it's not..." Hesitation clamps down on her lips, then, and this is it, she thinks, she'll shut up now. She surprises herself utterly when she continues. "It's not just one-sided. I... I've done things that hurt her, too, even if maybe I didn't know, entirely, and maybe it just makes more sense if we're not... friends that way, anymore."

Sam's eyes somehow go soft and so, so bright at the same time. Lena looks away.

"Did Kara say that she blames you for... whatever it is that you did?"

"No," Lena says. _She didn't have to,_ she doesn't.

"I'm not going to insult your intelligence by saying things that you already know," Sam says, and Lena has no idea what that means, because right now, she feels like she knows exceedingly little. "But I think you're amazing, and I think Kara thinks that too." And oh, inference is a bitch, isn't it, Lena thinks as she draws a shaky breath, hands curled into fists in her coat pockets, eyes still firmly on the middle distance.

"You don't have to be nice to me, you know, you _can_ just say that I'm being stupid."

"You are _amazing_ , Lena Luthor. You're _such_ a good person; you care _so_ much; you saved me; you saved _the goddamn world,_ multiple times; you're brave, and kind, and—amazing isn't a good enough word for you." 

It's the kind of declaration that she has only ever heard from one other person in her life, and Lena's ribs feel like they might break from how much they're expanding. But it doesn't soothe the aches inside of her the same way, and Lena doesn't know if it's because Sam isn't Kara or because Kara turned out to be lying all along, but maybe it's because Lena has learned, in the midst of everything, that she can't pin all her hopes on those words.

It's still nicer to hear them though. 

"I don't think I deserve you," she says thickly, for lack of anything else that she can actually formulate coherently.

She can hear Ruby's sneakers, pattering on pavement excitedly, and clears her throat, forces her features back into pleasantly neutral, more than ready to pretend for Ruby's sake, but Sam sticks out a hand and waits patiently until Lena has no choice but to take it.

"Yeah you do." Sam smiles, squeezes. 

 

* * *

 

Lena's life fits, more or less, into one suitcase, the only one she brought to Metropolis, because she can afford to buy anything she needs new, anywhere she goes. She could leave everything she brought here, stash it in the old townhouse, still shrouded in dust covers ever since Lex, and start over, anywhere else. But she packs it all up anyway. 

It occurs to her, once she's on the plane, that Sam is three months clear of actual trauma, and Lena is unbelievably selfish, just literally the worst friend. She calls Sam to tell her so, one last confession, and Sam just snorts, air rushing against the microphone, much louder than it would be if Sam were next to her.

"I love you; don't drink on the flight; _goodbye,_ Lena." And Sam hangs up.

She has never liked flying. Still, the sprawl of low buildings outside her window five hours later is familiar. So is the rattling bump of the plane when wheels hit the runway. Exhaling slowly, she leans her forehead against the window and squints into the morning sun.

 

 

 

 

 

iv.

Lena visits CatCo to tell James that she expects to stop by less, that she trusts he can keep operating the magazine as before, that she's at least talking to him, isn't she, so he can stop looking like _that_ (the last one conveyed in not so many words)—it isn't with the expectation that what happens next will happen.

"James, did you get those—" Kara enters, stage left, head bent and buried in her notes, until she notices Lena. "Oh. Uh." 

Because Lena had expected it to hurt more, the way it had the first time, second time, third time she thought about Kara Danvers in a supersuit. Had expected that if anything like this did happen—which it wasn't at all bound to, since the chances of Kara being in the office versus out pounding the pavement on any given morning are in Lena's favor—that she would snap her mouth shut, turn around and leave. But somehow, Kara's shoulders are huddled together in one of her sweaters, small and rounded with how she's lowered her planner and has it clasped in both hands in front of her, and none of what she expected happens. There's just a twinge in her gut, so muted that she's not sure of what. 

James gives Lena a small smile and excuses himself, even though it's technically his office, even though Kara gives him the most undisguisedly pleading look until he's gone and then she pretends that she didn't. Then it's just them, surrounded by silence and all the bustle of a busy morning at National City's most popular magazine.

"Hey," Kara says, dull, unexpectant, before visibly summoning up effort. "How was your trip? Did—Sam and Ruby settling in okay?"

Lena nods slowly. "Sam's doing great. The Metropolis office loves her, and she's... happy there. Ruby too. Sam's coaching her soccer team—something about how she's a sweeper keeper?" Kara scrunches her nose in confusion and Lena laughs softly, watching the lines on her face crease deeper and abruptly shift into something like hope—and then it's blinding; she can't, looks down and traces the edge of the desk with her fingertips instead. "I wasn't familiar either, but it sounded very impressive."

"That's... that's, yeah, impressive," Kara says, nodding a few times too many to feign nonchalance. "And Sam's, um..." Kara trails off, mindful of the always-open door, and adjusts her glasses. Suddenly, Lena is just astonished at _herself_ for having let this person lie to her for two years. Although, she supposes, that's the trick. Be so bad at lying that nobody ever thinks you are.

"In perfect health," she assures Kara, though, because that's more important than... any of this.

"Good. Good. I'm glad." Kara nods again, then offers, unsure, "Are you...?" A copout, even for Kara, and Lena's raised eyebrow communicates as much. Kara flushes, fingers flexing against the leather back of her planner before she blurts, "How are you?"

Still not what Lena would call brave, exactly, but it's progress. Lena purses her lips in consideration. "I'm not sure," she says finally, looking up again to see Kara's disappointed swallow, the way her eyes dart back down to the ground. "Better, at least," she adds, and that's all anyone can ask for, isn't it. Progress. Kara's head shoots back up in surprise. "We should probably talk."

Kara just stares her, gaping.

"Unless you don't want to—" It's probably at least a little bit mean, but it jumpstarts Kara back into motion, her head shaking _violently,_ and Lena is almost relieved to feel a familiar surge of fondness instead of... everything else.

"No, no, no that's not—I definitely want to. Talk, that is. Um. Now?" Like a question mark, Kara's whole head quirks.

"How about you stop by my office after work?" Lena picks up her bag, starts heading out the door, and Kara just stands and does her best bobblehead impression, hands still clutching her planner like she doesn't know what else to do with them.

"Sure. Sure, I can—sure."

And Lena thinks of a black rock that held a dying world together, if only just, and how maybe sometimes there are second chances even if not entirely deserved. How maybe Kara, of all people, should know that. Maybe they both should.

"And Kara?" Lena turns back, brow arched in mild amusement as Kara freezes, so uncertain. "Use the door."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hand-waving James as a close friend rather than a boyfriend (like, they thought about it, maybe kissed once, and then decided nah), but otherwise mostly canon, I think. Basically I just had a lot of feelings about Lena, is all. 
> 
> I debated, for far too long, honestly, whether I should tag supercorp (with a slash, that is) and ended up not, because, well, it felt like false advertising. But it is. Kind of. In my heart.
> 
> Title from _Samson_ by Regina Spektor, which inspired the melancholy, if not the specific content. Plus I just really wanted to use this title for a Supergirl fic, because why wouldn't I?
> 
> ETA for chapter 2: Yeah, so originally I thought I was done with all the ~feelings~ and boy was I wrong. Mostly I realized I wanted Lena being sad all over Metropolis and Sam poking at her, because, Sam. I miss Sam. I do think I'm mostly done this time though.
> 
> Also, let's go ahead and tag supercorp because even Sam thinks Lena is pining and she's not wrong.


End file.
